March comes in like a Wall Street lion. The Nasdaq composite capped its long march back to 5000 on Monday, eclipsing, then closing above the long-hallowed mark for the first time since March 2000. (USA Today)

Obama sharply criticizes China's plans for new technology rules. President Barack Obama on Monday sharply criticized China's plans for new rules on U.S. tech companies, urging Beijing to change the policy if it wants to do business with the United States and saying he had raised it with President Xi Jinping. (Reuters)

Costly shift to new credit cards won't fix security issues. New technology about to be deployed by credit card companies will require U.S. consumers to carry a new kind of card and retailers across the nation to upgrade payment terminals. But despite a price tag of $8.65 billion, the shift will address only a narrow range of security issues. (Reuters)

Workforce

Challenge to tech: Reveal pay inequity. We who live and breathe innovation, who succeed only by imagining new realities, must channel our world-changing energies into fixing this most essential of injustices. If not us, who? (USA Today Op-Ed)

Patent trolls hurt R&D say scholars in letter to Congress. “Be careful about changing patent law — it could harm innovation,” is a favorite talking point for those who oppose plans to reform to America’s troubled patent system. But what if the opposite is true? What if it’s the status quo, in which patent trolls sock productive companies with abusive lawsuits, that is hurting innovation? (Gigaom)

We Need a Patent System That Works for All Innovators. The heart and soul of American innovation has always been the individual inventor — that special, inspired person who toils for days, months and even years in a garage, at a computer, or in a laboratory to create the next product, service or cure that will change the way we live our lives. (Re/code Op-Ed)

Global Trade

EPP Chief Touts Support For TTIP In Parliament; Reding Says Data Deals Prerequisite. The president of the European Parliament's largest political group last week drove home the message to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and House Ways & Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) that there is strong support in the parliament for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), despite vocal opposition to the negotiations by some European lawmakers and civil society groups. (World Trade Online)

Expected Abe visit adds urgency to TPA talks. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s expected visit to Washington in late April is raising hopes of a possible conclusion to Asia-Pacific trade talks in the next two months, but slow action in Congress on trade promotion authority could ruin a dream moment for U.S.-Japan relations. (Politico Pro)

US, China making progress on investment treaty. Progress is being made on a U.S.-China bilateral investment treaty (BIT) that would expand trade between the world's two largest economies, a top State Department official said Monday. (The Hill)

Public Sector

Cloud adoption gains traction with state, local agencies. The breadth of state and local governments embracing cloud computing came into sharper focus late last week when Microsoft released new figures showing that 395 state and local government agencies and 150 federal agencies are now making use of the company’s Azure Government community cloud. (StateScoop)

Industry dives into NS2020 draft. Industry is beginning to digest the 13 documents and several hundred pages of the draft request for proposals for the General Services Administration's next big telecommunications effort. ITI’s ITAPS is quoted. (FCW)

Google, Stanford say big data is key to deep learning for drug discovery. A team of researchers from Stanford University and Google have released a paper highlighting a deep learning approach they say shows promise in the field of drug discovery. What they found, essentially, is that that more data covering more biological processes seems like a good recipe for uncovering new drugs. (Gigaom)

ULA ready to compete against Elon Musk’s space startup, CEO says. Faced with mounting pressure from Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the United Launch Alliance’s new chief executive said Monday he has been re-configuring the company in order to compete, slashing the cost of national security launches and developing a new launch system. (Washington Post)

Mobility

Free Wi-Fi On Buses Offers A Link To Future Of 'Smart Cities'. Board any city bus in Portugal's second-largest municipality, Porto, and you've got free Wi-Fi. More than 600 city buses and taxis have been fitted with wireless routers, creating what's touted as the biggest Wi-Fi-in-motion network in the world. (NPR)

ITI Member News

Google to launch small US mobile network. Google is launching its own mobile network in the US, threatening to become a powerful competitor to telecoms groups unless they move quickly to support its ambitious efforts to improve internet access globally. (FT)

Zuckerberg Moves to Mend Fences With Telecom Industry. Facing criticism from carriers that say Facebook Inc. is hurting their business models, Mr. Zuckerberg struck a conciliatory tone Monday, saying the only way to expand Internet access around the world is if carriers’ revenue grows too. (WSJ)

1600 Penn.

In the afternoon, President Obama will meet with Secretary of Defense Carter in the Oval Office. Afterward, the president and the first lady will deliver remarks about expanding efforts to help adolescent girls worldwide attend and stay in school. Later in the afternoon, the president will meet with senior advisors in the Oval Office.

Today on the Hill

The House will meet at 9:30 a.m. for legislative business and recess immediately. The House will reconvene at approximately 10:45 a.m. for a Joint Meeting of Congress.The Senate will convene at 9:45 a.m. for morning business and recess at 10:30 a.m. to attend a joint meeting of Congress to receive His Excellency, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel.